Spamalot still silly but also hilarious

Camelot is just as silly a place in the stage show Monty Python’s Spamalot as it is in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail from which Monty Python member Eric Idle lovingly ripped it off.

The show follows the plotline of the movie (with a few insertions from other Python films and even the TV show), with a mort of silly songs (music and lyrics by Idle and John Du Prez).

And Monday night at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Music Hall, the Phoenix Entertainment touring cast played silly to the, er, hilt.

King Arthur (Arthur Rowan), accompanied by his faithful coconut-clapping steed, Patsy (Glenn Giron), gathers to him various knights (Adam Grabau as Sir Lancelot, Kasidy Devlin as Sir Robin, Thomas DeMarcus as Sir Bedevere and Joshua Taylor Hamilton as Sir Dennis Galahad) to search for the Holy Grail, with the aid of the Lady of the Lake (Abigail Raye).

Of course, they get sidetracked by a taunting Frenchman (Grabau again), the rescue of a “damsel” in distress, a hunt for a shrubbery to satisfy the Knights Who Say “Ni” and then for enough Jews to put on a Broadway show (don’t ask) and the pointy teeth of a killer rabbit.

This is a Middle Ages where nobody is ever quite dead, not even the plague victims or the thoroughly dismembered Black Knight (DeMarcus); despite mortal sword wounds and blows to the head, they have to get up and take part in the next silly production number.

Even if you’ve seen this show before, this version is sufficiently different — and yes, hilarious — to give you some new thrills. Special mention is due to Raye, whose giant voice has a vibrato to match (witness particularly her scenery-chewing “Diva’s Lament”), Devlin (including his brief double as Brother Maynard, keeper of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch), Grabau and relatively unsung Joe Beuerlein as “Not Dead Fred” and the rather vocal Prince Herbert.

The whole wacky lot will do it all over again at 7:30 p.m. today at Robinson, West Markham Street and Broadway, under the auspices of Celebrity Attractions.

Ticket information is available by calling (501) 2448800 or online at ticketmaster.com or CelebrityAttractions.com.